Dear Robin Neill and David Collander:
Quite.
It is certainly true that peer review leads to a policing of the
boundaries of Normal Science. And so peer review is no cure-all for bad
work---on the contrary, it forces the production of a good deal of it.
Peer review in the production of journal articles is greatly overrated
as a check on bad work. Mainly it enforces orthodoxy.
And yes, David, I can well believe that peer-reviewed Science is a
rather small portion of what an economist, even an academic economist, does.
Therefore: be it resolved that we will not participate in ranking
schemes. Instead, we will commit to reading some of the work of people
we are required to assess.
Regards,
Deirdre McCloskey